Compensation
by thedeliverygod
Summary: "If the only way for me to stop losing my body is to cut ties with you, then…" She took a breath, "Can I change my wish?"
1. Chapter 1

**This ended up going in a different direction than what I initially intended but I think I like the result. I also totally thought it was longer than this, but I guess that's because I wrote the last half of it last night by the light of a lantern (my power went out due to an ice storm and now I'm staying somewhere else).**

 _Compensation_

"Yato." Hiyori took a step closer to him, a determined expression on her face, "I've been thinking…"

"About?" He answered nervously, his fists clenching a little tighter inside of his jacket pockets.

"If the only way for me to stop losing my body is to cut ties with you, then…" She took a breath, "Can I change my wish?"

He wasn't sure what he expected her to say, but it wasn't that. His mouth fell open, but no words came out, so Hiyori kept talking.

"I mean, I already paid the five yen and I know you don't do refunds, so… I was just wondering."

"U-uh, yeah." Yato shook off his nervousness, "Yeah! I can do that."

She smiled widely, "Great."

He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, "So what do you want?"

"Huh?" Hiyori blinked and Yato squinted at her.

"Your new wish; what do you want?" He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "You said you thought a lot about it, right?"

"Actually, no." She admitted with a small laugh, "I just meant that I thought a lot about my original wish and how I could maybe go back to having a normal life. But even without cutting our ties, being normal again would mean that I couldn't help everyone the way I can now. So really all I have to do is learn how to control it better." Hiyori held her hand against her chest, determined.

"Right…" Yato answered half-heartedly, turning his head.

She took a step forward, but hesitated reaching out to him. "Is there something wrong?"

"I know you've saved me quite a few times in that form but… I also wish you wouldn't use it so often." He let out a sigh before turning to her again, "Every time you're in that form, you have your cord exposed. All it takes is a split second for something to go wrong. When you're in that form," He hesitated, finishing in a low voice, "You're basically already half way dead."

"I-isn't that kind of the point?" Her voice had caught in her throat at first, unsure of how to answer, "That's how I can interact with beings of the far shore."

"Hiyori." He reached out to grasp her shoulders, "I want you to be more careful. To only slip out of your body if you _really_ need to. And if it happens on accident, to try your best to wake yourself up. I could handle losing you if you wanted to willingly cut your ties, because I know you'd still be okay, but..."

His grip tightened on her shoulder and she nodded, but her confidence was fading underneath Yato's stare. "Did you really think that I was considering cutting ties with you? Even though I've already refused before?" She asked quietly.

He stiffened and averted his eyes to the ground, "I didn't want to make any assumptions, especially since you just got accepted into college. I knew it was a possibility that your wants may change. That they still might."

Hiyori shook her head adamantly, "They won't. I want to keep tutoring Yukine-kun for as long as he wants to keep learning. I want to keep going over to Kofuku-san's house for holidays, birthdays, and for every little excuse that she and Daikoku-san come up with as a reason to celebrate something. I want to keep spending time with you." He loosened his grip on her and she saw his jaw tighten, seemingly embarrassed by his doubt. "Yato, I'm not going to push you away." Hiyori closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around him tightly, "I don't want to lose you either."

He swallowed as he considered her words, eventually letting his hands fall lower to return her embrace.

"I thought of a wish." She spoke lowly against his ear.

"Hm?" He pulled back and turned his head as much as he could, but Hiyori had no intention of letting him go.

She inhaled sharply before blurting out, "Kiss me."

" _What_?" If she hadn't have been supporting him, he surely would have fallen backwards.

"Kiss me. If you want to, that is." She closed her eyes, her nervousness returning once again. There was a moment of silence before she finally heard him answer.

"Save your wish, Hiyori." She furrowed her brows and blinked her eyes open again, thinking he was having another moment of self-doubt. Instead, she found his hand reaching up to cup her face. "Because you're granting one of mine." She noticed a slight blush across his face as well before she got distracted by the feeling of his chapped lips against hers. Her eyes fluttered closed again, parting her lips and returning his affection. It was awkward, but it was sweet and warm; absolutely nothing like her first kiss that was stolen by Fujisaki.

When Yato finally pulled away, he hid his face against her neck and in her hair, saying breathlessly, "Come to think of it, I think you've granted more wishes for me than I have for you."

She smiled, mumbling, "It's only fair. You spend so much time with me when most humans don't even get to interact with any of the gods that they pray to. So I should give you something in return, right?"

"Sure, if you want to see it that way." He laughed against her skin.

Hiyori let out a small laugh too, before humming in thought, "So what do we do now?"

Yato pulled away and straightened himself out, running a hand through his hair sheepishly, "That's up to you. We can just keep it at this, or…"

She intertwined her hand with his, tugging it so that he would turn back to look at her, "I know it doesn't really make any sense and it's totally crazy… But now that we've crossed over that line, I don't think I can go back to the way it was."

"So you'll marry me, then?" Yato beamed, gripping her hand tighter.

Hiyori's face instantly turned red, " _NO!_ I'll date you."

"Hm… Okay. But that's so casual; no real commitment." He put his free hand on his hip, looking off as he mulled it over.

"I know I'm eighteen now, but I'm still in high school. And at least let me finish college first before proposing and then I'll consider it…" She sighed heavily.


	2. Chapter 2

**A continuation of this story was requested by possibleplatypus on Archive of Our Own, so here it is! Hope you guys enjoy it.**

Exams were _finally_ over and Hiyori was feeling a mix of fatigue and relief as she dragged her feet towards Kofuku's house. To be honest, she wanted to go back to her apartment so she could collapse onto her bed and sleep for an entire day, but Yato had absolutely insisted that she stopped by after she was done with her last exam.

"Hello?" She called out as she slipped off her shoes, but the house was uncharacteristically quiet and dark. Hearing nothing in reply, she frowned and wondered if maybe Yato and Yukine had gotten called away for another job. Still, that left Kofuku and Daikoku's absence unexplained; they were almost always home due to Kofuku's specialty for bringing bad luck to whatever location she was in.

Taking a single step into the house she called out again, "Is anyone home?"

"Congrats, Hiyori!" Yato and Yukine jumped out in front of her, followed by a loud pop and plenty of paper string and confetti flying towards her.

She flinched and yelped at first, completely thrown off guard. Blinking a bit and letting her heart rate lessen, she finally smiled appreciatively, "Thank you, Yato, Yukine-kun. But it's only my first year of college… I've got a lot more to go."

"That's still a big milestone!" Yato replied defensively before his eyes widened and he gave an awkward smile with a motion towards the ground, "Uh, you lost something."

Hiyori looked around , first seeing the glow of her cord behind her before noticing her sleeping form underneath her. "Really!?" She sighed loudly.

"Guess we must have really scared you, huh?" Yukine smiled sheepishly, "Sorry, Hiyori."

She shook her head and gave a little laugh as she explained, "It's okay. I'm honestly so worn out that I don't even know if I passed out from the surprise or just sheer exhaustion."

"So much for having more control." Yato ran a hand through his hair.

"I've been doing better!" Hiyori immediately huffed back, "I'm physically _and_ mentally tired right now. It's hard to have control over anything, really."

"I was just joking." He reached out to touch her shoulder, a small smile on his face, "Anyway, try to wake yourself up. You need your body to eat dinner." He let go of her to head toward the kitchen, calling, "C'mon, Yukine."

Hiyori titled her head, "You two are making it?"

The younger boy stopped at Yato's side, letting his master answer, "Yeah. What about it?"

"I've seen Yukine-kun cook for the shop before, but never you, so I was just curious…" She answered honestly, "Where are Kofuku-san and Daikoku-san, anyway?"

"Out on a date." Yato answered automatically.

Hiyori blinked, dragging out, "Um… is that safe?"

The two boys looked at each other and their faces fell. Yukine turned back to her, admitting, "Probably not. But it's not like we can force them to stay home all the time? Besides, it's Daikoku-san's choice, he is Kofuku-san's exemplar after all; I'm only in charge of Yato." He paused with a sniff, turning to Yato, "Speaking of, you really should check on everything."

Yato immediately became wide eyed and dashed out of the room, waving his arms exuberantly as he made his way out.

Laughing a little at Yato's expense, Hiyori looked back to Yukine and commented in a small voice, "You two really didn't have to do all this for me."

"Don't worry about it, Hiyori. Just relax. Uh, well, after you get back into your body I guess." He corrected, rubbing the back of his neck, "Anyway, I've gotta go help him before he burns something."

"Go ahead." She waved him off. Smiling to herself, she commented under her breath, "So it is mainly Yukine-kun cooking." It wouldn't have really surprised her at this point if Yato was good at cooking, considering how many other talents she had found out about over the past few years. In fact, it was sort of getting to the point where she was glad when she found out things he _wasn't_ good at.

His various flaws sometimes made it easy to believe that he was human, or at least that she was at least worthy of being around him. But whenever she was reminded of his vast years of experience or sometimes while she was watched him use Yukine as Sekki to fight phantoms, she wondered why he would enjoy being with a simple, normal girl like her.

"Hiyori, you better be back in your body soon!" She heard his voice call out loudly, pulling her from her thoughts.

"I-I'm working on it!" She answered loudly as she made her way over to her sleeping body. Standing over herself, she did her best to relax her body; letting her shoulders fall and letting out a small sigh.

As she blinked her eyes open to see the floor, she let out a sigh of relief before she heard Yato speak again, "Maybe you should go check on her, Yukine."

"She's not the one who needs babysitting, you are." His regalia snapped back automatically.

Smiling to herself and shaking her head, she called out again, "I'm ready! I'll just wait at the table."

"Okay!" Yukine replied cheerily to her before he commented smugly to Yato, "See?"

She didn't hear him respond, but she could imagine he was glaring at the younger boy. It was almost a little too tempting to go check up on both of them, but she didn't want to ruin whatever it was that they were working on so hard for her, so she pulled out her phone and scrolled through Twitter to keep herself busy.

"It's ready!" She lifted her head as Yukine came into the room with two plates full of food, "There's a lot more, too."

"It looks delicious!" She clapped her hands together before questioning, "Where'd Yato go? Do you need help carrying everything?" She started to sit up

Yukine shook his head adamantly and held out his arm in front of her after he had put down the plates, "Don't worry about it, Hiyori, I'm fine. And he'll be back in a minute."

She let out a breath of air and bit her lip, feeling a bit suspicious, "…Okay."

After Yukine had covered almost all of the table with various dishes for dinner as well as dessert , which Yato had a bad habit of eating first, he sat down across the table from Hiyori who was still giving him a suspicious stare. Laughing nervously and rubbing the back of his neck, Yukine reassured her, "He should be down here any minute now…"

"What'd he go upstairs for?" She furrowed her brows and titled her head.

"Uh, you'll see." He answered, avoiding her eyes by pouring a glass of water.

Finally Yato walked into the room, trying to act nonchalant about the fact he'd changed out of his usual tracksuit into a pair of dress paints, a white button up shirt and a dark blue tie. "Ready to eat?"

"Did you borrow Kazuma-san's clothes again?" Hiyori's mouth had fallen open and she glanced to Yukine expecting a see a similar reaction, but he was still avoiding her gaze and sipping on water out of his glass.

"No." He fired back with a small blush, "I just bought it recently."

"Oh." She answered quietly, embarrassed, "I really appreciate it, but you two really didn't have to go through all this trouble. Like I said before, I've still got a lot more to go."

Yato folded his arms across his chest in response, commenting to himself but loud enough for both Hiyori and Yukine to hear, "Well, hopefully we'll be celebrating more than just that."

"Eh?" She squinted and leaned a little bit closer to his side of the table, "What do you mean?"

He sighed and stood up, "I didn't really want to do it this way, but I figured you'd be suspicious, so I can't really say I'm surprised."

"What?" Her eyes followed him upward, watching him as he walked around the corner of the table and kneeled down, supporting himself on one knee. She inhaled and her breath caught in her throat before her hands flew up to her mouth, covering it.

"Hiyori," He hesitated, reaching far into his pocket until he finally pulled out a box and flipped it open to reveal a silver ring with a small, round diamond. With his face gradually turning more and more red by the minute, he finished, "Will you marry me?"

"Y-Yato…" She blinked repeatedly, her voice barely above the whisper and her throat feeling extremely dry, "Remember what I said before… about waiting until after I was done with college? And the ring… Did you really have the money to spend on that?"

"I know, I know, I know." He nodded, quickly explaining, "But we don't have to actually _get_ married anytime soon. But just knowing that you _want_ to is enough to hold me over for as long as you want to wait." He reached out to grasp her hand, pausing for a moment before continuing, "And don't worry about the ring, me and Yukine and have been doing tons and tons of work lately. It was totally in our budget."

Her eyes flickered to Yukine, who once again gave a nervous smile. "R-right." He answered with a small laugh.

She closed her eyes and exhaled, letting her tense muscles relax as she thought everything over. "Okay." She finally let out.

"Okay?" Yato repeated her words with a squint, unsure and searching for verification.

"Yes, I will." Her voice was still quiet and a little bit flustered, adamantly adding, "Sometime _after_ college."

He beamed, carefully lowering her hand and slipping the ring onto her finger before reaching up to pull her into a kiss.

She smiled against his lips and returned the kiss shyly, glancing back down to look at the ring more closely once they had pulled away from each other. "It is really beautiful, but I still think you probably spent more than you should have."

"It's totally worth it to help ward off guys from hitting on you." Yato mumbled under his breath and Hiyori sent a tired stare his way before he gestured towards the younger boy, "Yukine helped pick it out too!"

Her eyes widening, she turned towards him, "Really, Yukine-kun?"

He sank lower into his seat, admitting softly, "Y-yeah."

"Then it's perfect." Hiyori smiled and looked back to Yato.

He started to lean back in towards her before Yukine's voice rang out loudly, "All the food you worked so hard on is gonna get cold! Besides, I can only handle so much of this lovey dovey stuff."

Yato gave her a brief peck on the cheek before getting up and taking the long way around the table, stopping to ruffle Yukine's hair, "Better get used to it!"

"Ugh." He groaned, giving his master a glare as watched him sit back down.


End file.
